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Recipe: Sugar Cookies

This is a basic and nearly no-fail sugar cookie recipe that was given to me by a friend several years ago. It quickly became my go-to favorite because it’s so forgiving, and it’s inspired a larger than justifiable cooke cutter collection. In class this week we’ve made a Pate Sucrée, or Sweet Tart Dough- amazingly similar to this recipe- that we’ve used as a tart crust. I may post that one tomorrow for a little compare and contrast experiment.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

1 3/4 cups sugar

3/4 tsp salt

5 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract (optional)

5 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

3 tsp cream of tartar

Method:

Cream butter, sugar and salt in a mixer until light.

Beat in eggs, one at a time, and add vanilla and almond. Scrape sides of bowl as needed.

Add flour, soda and tartar and mix just until uniformly combined. Overmixing will make dough tougher as it begins to develop gluten.

Wrap with plastic and chill for 6-24 hours.

Roll chilled dough into 1/4″ thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut into cookies as desired.

Bake at 350F for about 10 minutes or until set but barely golden on the edges.